Trip Advisor

Italian meal

I don't feel you can talk about food and drink without talking about one of the most powerful tools available to the consumer today. Trip Advisor.

Since it's inception in 2000, Trip Advisor has changed the way we look at restaurants. Before we even leave our home we can view the ratings and comments of hundreds of complete strangers.

Unfortunately negative and damming comments which are rarely removed can damage these businesses and indeed some restaurants have closed due to this.

I experienced this first hand this weekend. With my wife's birthday looming I took advice from an acquaintance and travelled 30 mile with my friends for a gastronomic extravaganza.

What I was completely unaware of was the recent national media interest in the trip advisor comments that the owner chef had made in return to some negative comments - referring to one customer as an 'air head' and another as a 'racist'.

Family run, the emphasis was on quality Italian fresh food made by the chef owner. My starter was spicy Calabrian sausages with homemade pasta and for the main monkfish on a bed of mustard mash. It was one of the best meals I have eaten in over a year. The service was a bit awkward probably because it was so busy and it caused a communication breakdown between orders.

Did this spoil our evening? No. Was it the most memorable part of our visit? No. It was the food.

The next day I decided to make my thoughts known via Trip Advisor; that's when I found the media storm. The overall feedback was very positive but it was peppered with very negative comments. At some point in the last six months the owner had decided to bite back and had made a number of hard hitting replies. And in my view rightly so. When a customer had complained that there was no pizza for his children and left a one star review (which remains still) the owner points out that they are a ristorante not a pizzeria. Another complaint was about the garlic bread even when they don't serve garlic bread.

I'm really glad I didn't see the reviews before although it was at least 95% positive. I could look back on the reviews from a customer who had no prior information and thus view the accuracy of trip advisor.

What surely has to be more important is passionate owners working seven days a week to create labours of love. I gave it five stars. I probably overlooked the service a bit but gave them an extra star for the haranguing they have received from the national press who decided to show a few of the negative comments and replies on their website. Yes they definitely deserved that extra star.

I do hope chefs keep making passionate food and please read between the lines when it comes to strangers' comments.

Food & Wine by Paul Sheerin 
Pshearse@gmail.com